Good news everyone! No, seriously, this is really good news.
I know we’ve all been following the 38 Studios – Big Huge Games story pretty closely and it’s been mostly bad news. But we did see an extraordinary showing of support from the video game industry as various companies offered the refugees positions at their companies.
At the same time, folks at the studios affected continued to work in hopes things would turn out better than they did.
Now, Epic Games have announced that they will not only be taking on some of the refugees, but that they will take on as many people as possible from Big Huge Games to start a new studio in Baltimore, Maryland.
This is the result of members of ex-BHG leadership contacting Epic in an effort to acquire permission to use one of their IP’s to start a new game and company. At the same time, Epic had been looking at starting a new IP and needed talent to do so.
Realizing the obvious solution for both companies, Epic has begun planning for the Baltimore studio. Since this will take a bit of time, Epic has also prepared to bring a portion of the ex-BHG staff on as contractors in their North Carolina offices to keep them afloat while the studio is being set up.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m very happy to see Epic stepping in to help a company that wants to continue to work together be able to do so.
